US Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Monday led a bipartisan group of 68 senators in a letter urging the Biden administration to “prioritize reversing the UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) discriminatory and unwarranted treatment of Israel by leading a multinational effort in the Council and in the UN to end the permanent Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
With the United States returning as a member of the UNHRC earlier this year, the senators urged Secretary of State Antony Blinken “to use our position to redirect resources from wasteful and biased investigations into Israel and focus on human rights crises around the world.”
Joining Senators Cardin and Portman in the letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken include: Senators Chuck Schumer, Patrick Leahy, Jim Risch, Susan Collins, Gary Peters, Jacky Rosen, Chris Coons, John Boozman, Jerry Moran, Cory Booker, Ben Sasse, Ron Wyden, Chuck Grassley, Daniel Sullivan, Kevin Cramer, Lisa Murkowski, Marsha Blackburn, Bill Cassidy, Debbie Stabenow, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Maggie Hassan, Shelley Moore Capito, Joni Ernst, John Cornyn, Tim Scott, Sheldon Whitehouse, Dianne Feinstein, Joe Manchin, Bill Hagerty, Marco Rubio, Kirsten Sinema, Richard Blumenthal, Jon Tester, Mike Braun, Rick Scott, John Hoeven, Deb Fischer, Mike Rounds, Roger Marshall, John Kennedy, Mike Lee, Alex Padilla, Steven Daines, Lindsey Graham, Roger Wicker, Tammy Duckworth, Catherine Cortez Masto, Patty Murray, Michael Bennet, Tim Kaine, Mark Warner, John Thune, John Hickenlooper, Mark Kelly, Todd Young, Maria Cantwell, Jeanne Shaheen, Roy Blunt, Pat Toomey, Tommy Tuberville, Josh Hawley, Bob Casey, Amy Klobuchar, Raphael Warnock, Mike Crapo and Kristen Gillibrand.
“We appreciate your commitment to put the Council’s ‘disproportionate focus on Israel’ at the top of the Biden administration’s agenda for reforming the Council when the US announced it would seek to rejoin the UNHRC …By unfairly singling out Israel, the UNHRC undermines its credibility to investigate human rights violations around the world,” the senators wrote.
“The COI is the latest endeavor by UNHRC to discredit the only Jewish state and is likely to further fuel antisemitism worldwide. Therefore, we urge you to act upon the Administration’s commitment to defend Israel from discriminatory treatment at the Human Rights Council and throughout the UN system,” they added.
Former US President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the UNHRC in 2018, citing its longstanding anti-Israel bias.
However, the Biden administration returned to the organization even though it acknowledged its “disproportionate focus” on Israel.
The UNHRC continues to pass resolutions condemning Israel. Last July, it announced the formation of a commission chaired by Navi Pillay to investigate what was described as “systematic” abuses allegedly committed in Israel and Palestinian Authority territories during violence between Hamas and Israel last May.
Israel has announced that it will not cooperate with the UN probe, noting Pillay has endorsed “the shameful libel” branding Israel an apartheid nation and backed the boycott movement against Israel.